1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium reproduction (or playback) apparatus such as an optical disk player and, more particularly, to a recording medium reproduction apparatus for reproducing desired data from a recording medium on which both video data and audio data having a plurality of audio channels are recorded.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with the advance of moving picture data compression encoding techniques represented by MPEG (Moving Picture Image Coding Expert Group) 1, long-playback-time moving picture information can be recorded even on an optical disk. Attempts have been made to record data including video and audio data, such as a movie and karaoke, on an optical disk having a size equal to that of a CD (Compact Disk). The development of reproduction apparatuses (disk players) for that purpose and efforts for making such development are active today.
In one recently proposed scheme, compression-encoded video data and audio data of one or more audio channels are combined in lengths, each determined with reference to a predetermined reproduction time (e.g., 1 second), to form blocks. The blocks are recorded on an optical disk, and one of the audio channels is selected to reproduce audio data together with the video data in the reproduction mode. For example, audio data of different languages such as Japanese, English, and Italian are recorded as audio data of a movie.
In this audio multiplex recording scheme, a desired audio channel can be arbitrarily selected and switched in accordance with the choice of a user or audience. In switching audio reproduction from a given audio channel to another audio channel, noise is undesirably generated upon the audio channel switching, thereby discomforting the audience.
Another problem is poor operability of audio channel selection. More specifically, when audio data of a plurality of audio channels are simply recorded on an optical disk, the user or audience cannot easily determine the correspondence between specific audio channels and specific contents of various types of audio data.
In the recording medium reproduction apparatus for reproducing desired data from a recording medium on which video data and audio data of a plurality of audio channels are recorded, noise is undesirably generated during audio channel switching. In addition, this apparatus has poor operability of audio channel selection.